Are looking for ways to reduce email unsubscribe rate?
Email marketing is still one of the most cost-effective ways to acquire customers. One recent Priceonomics customer survey indicates that 2/3rds of internet users open emails from companies they know.
If you run an eCommerce business, this probably applies to you as well. so it’s definitely worth investing some time thinking about your email unsubscribe rates.
Unsubscribes are a sensitive topic. It’s easy to get defensive when a customer chooses to opt out of your emails and remind yourself that you’re sending so many emails because it’s a “valuable” channel for acquiring new customers. (For the record, we think that’s a super flawed argument, you should be sending as many emails as your audience permits, not as many as you want to send).
Anyway, the truth is that unsubscribes are bad news for your data quality. If a customer opts out of your emails, then you lose access to their contact information. So it’s really important that you do everything in your power to reduce your unsubscribe rates.
So we did some research and experimented with our own email campaigns to identify the most effective strategies for reducing opt-outs and maximizing email deliverability rates. Here’s what we found:
Table of Contents
How to Reduce Email Unsubscribe Rates
1. Target Customers More Tightly
One way to reduce opt-outs is to send your email campaigns to highly specific audiences. This can be a double-edged sword. In some cases, this will help you get better open rates because subscribers will have a higher interest in what you have to say. This is true for customers that receive emails from their favorite retailers or restaurant.
However, it’s also important to remember that very specific audiences are usually small audiences and small audiences result in high unsubscribe rates (the smaller the audience, the higher the unsubscribe rates).
The Priceonomics customer survey indicates that one of the most effective ways to reduce unsubscribes is to avoid sending your emails to small audiences. So you should carefully consider whether or not targeting customers more tightly would increase your open rates enough to compensate for increased unsubscribe rates.
2. Verify Your Emails Are NOT Being Blocked
One of the quickest ways to get your emails marked as spam is to not authenticate your domain in DKIM and SPF records. If you’re not familiar with email authentication, take a look at this blog post or this video for a quick explanation: You can use the DMARC analyzer to check your email authentication records.
3. Build Trust With Your Subscribers and Customers
When you first start emailing people, they don’t know who you are or what you’re about. They may have subscribed to your list because they were interested in what you had to say, but they don’t really know if they can trust you yet.
That’s why it’s important to build trust with your subscribers from the start. Show them that you’re a credible source of information by providing quality content that they can use. Help them get to know, like, and trust you so that they’ll be more likely to stay subscribed to your list.
Here are a few ways to build trust with your subscribers:
- Be transparent about who you are and what you do. Let people know what they can expect to receive from you, and make sure you deliver on your promises.
- Be responsive to your subscribers’ needs and concerns. Show them that you care about their experience by taking the time to answer their questions and address their concerns.
- Be consistent with your content. Don’t try to be everything to everyone – focus on a specific niche and provide quality content that your target audience will appreciate.
By following these tips, you can start to build trust with your subscribers and reduce your email unsubscribe rate.
4. Use Truncated Domains
Truncated domains are useful in reducing email unsubscribe rates.
For example, if your company’s email address is something like info@companyname.com, using a truncated domain like companyname.info will make it harder for people to unsubscribe from your emails.
This is because they will have to enter the full email address in order to unsubscribe, which is less likely to happen than if they only have to enter the company name.
5. Include Clear URLs in Your Emails
Gmail uses the text that appears in your email’s “from” field to determine whether or not it should put your emails into the Promotions tab.
This means it’s important to include clear, descriptive text in this field so customers know who you are before they open your message. If you use Gmail, you can easily test if your “from” field is providing enough context by doing a quick search for messages sent from the domain in question:
6. Send Personalized Email Content
Personalization is one of the most effective ways to keep your subscribers engaged. In fact, according to a study by Experian, personalized emails deliver 6x higher transaction rates than generic emails.
There are a number of ways you can personalize your email content, but one of the simplest is to use the subscriber’s name in the email’s subject line and/or in the body of the email.
7. Keep Your Subscription Popups Organized By Interest
One way you can keep your subscription popups organized is by interest. This involves segmenting your list into groups based on the topics they are interested in. By doing this, you can offer more targeted content to each group, which can help reduce email unsubscribe rates.
You can also use a tool like ConvertKit Forms to create targeted subscription forms. This allows you to show different forms to different visitors based on their interests.
Targeted content is more likely to be relevant to your subscribers, which can help reduce email unsubscribe rates.
8. Insert a Checkbox at The End of Emails
You Send Asking Customers to Unsubscribe If They Don’t Want to Receive Any Further Emails From You
Most email services provide systems that allow customers to easily opt-out of an email list if they no longer wish to receive messages from that source. This is especially useful because it provides customers with another easy way to be removed from your list without having their address blacklisted by ISPs (and possibly other email lists as well).
9. Monitor Your Email Deliverability With a Quality ESP
The first step to reducing your email unsubscribe rate is to make sure that your email deliverability is as high as possible. This means using a quality ESP (email service provider) that can help you get your emails into the inboxes of your subscribers.
There are a few things to look for when choosing an ESP, but one of the most important is their deliverability rate. This is the percentage of emails that are successfully delivered to subscriber inboxes.
Different email service providers are better suited for different businesses, so make sure you work with one that can meet your specific needs. Also keep in mind that the features it provides may not be as important to you as other features, even if they’re vital to some of your customers.
For example, if you’re just getting started with email marketing, then having an easy-to-use interface is probably more important than the number of integrations it has.
10. Use a double opt-in process
Another way to reduce email unsubscribe rates is to use a double opt-in process. With this process, people who sign up for your emails will first receive an email asking them to confirm their subscription.
Only after they confirm their subscription will they start receiving your regular emails. This process helps to ensure that only people who really want to receive your emails are on your list, which reduces the chances of them unsubscribing.
The Bottom Line
Reducing email unsubscribe rates is crucial for the success of your email marketing campaigns. By implementing the strategies discussed in this guide, you can effectively retain your subscribers and build a loyal audience.
Remember to regularly monitor and analyze your email metrics to identify areas for improvement and continuously adapt your strategies to meet the evolving needs of your audience. With dedication and a data-driven approach, you can reduce your email unsubscribe rates and see significant growth in your email marketing success.
If you want help improving your email deliverability or managing your email marketing, feel free to contact us for a consultation.
